The Gamble (I) (52 page)

Yes. Because at Waverley there was Willy, too, and Willy’s love meant almost as much to her as Scott’s.

So what about the chances for heaven? Everything she’d ever wished for, that one day Scott would look her squarely in the eye and say he loved her, wanted to marry her and make Willy their own forever. That was really how it ought to be. Would he ever see that?

Ah, but that was the gamble, for she didn’t know.

She had gambled once before with Scott Gandy and lost, and it had hurt. Hurt. But love was an infectious thing and a smart person would bet on it every time.

And Agatha Downing was one smart lady.

Leaving Violet turned out to be less painful than Agatha had anticipated, chiefly because Violet was thrilled with the new status of her life as a merchant businesswoman. And, as Scott had predicted, after having lived at Mrs. Gill’s in a single room, Violet felt as if she were inheriting a villa in Agatha’s apartment. Also, she maintained a breathless sense of awe at Agatha’s having won a place in the household of LeMaster Scott Gandy, the man whose reckless smile had made her blush and titter so many times.

But at the last moment, when Agatha’s things were packed, her sampler carefully tucked away between layers of clothing in a trunk, her older hats donated to Violet, her apartment ransacked of all meaningful personal possessions, the sewing machine carted off to the depot on a dray, the final instructions given regarding the status of the shop’s books, Agatha looked around the building and her eyes met Violet’s.

“We’ve spent a lot of hours here together, haven’t we?”

“Most certainly have. We sewed plenty of stitches inside these walls. But then we did some laughing, too.”

Agatha smiled sadly. “Yes, we did.” Beside her, Moose let out an abused yowl from inside a poultry crate. “Are you sure you don’t mind my taking the cat?”

“Of course I’m sure. That creature of Mrs. Gill’s was gone for three days again last week and came home stinking to high heaven with her fur all matted down and limping, mind you! I’d like to have seen that.
Tt-ttt.
Anyway, in nine weeks there’ll be a new batch of kittens at the boardinghouse, and Josephine won’t know what to do with them when they start climbing the drapes and sharpening their claws on the furniture. No, you take Moose back to Willy. That’s where he belongs.” Violet paused and glanced around. “Well, now, we’d best get you two down to the depot just in case that train comes a bit early. Wouldn’t want you to miss it, not with Mr. Gandy waiting at the other end.
Tt-tt.”

Agatha closed the door of the dress shop behind her for the last time, turning to glance at the green shade she’d raised each morning and drawn each evening for more years than she cared to count. She glanced at the apartment windows overhead. The nostalgic remark she’d made inside had been voiced because of her affection for Violet. But not a twinge of regret troubled her as she turned her back on the building. It had been a lonely place all the years she’d lived there, and leaving, it was a pleasure.

But when she and Violet said good-bye beside the steaming train, a sudden sharp stab hit both of them. Their eyes met and they both realized that it could in all likelihood be the last time they ever saw each other.

They hugged hard.

“You’ve been a dear friend, Violet.”

“So have you. And I shan’t give up hope that Mr. Gandy will see the light and take you for a lover, if not for a wife.”

“Violet, you’re outrageous.” Agatha laughed with misty eyes.

“I’ll tell you a secret, dear, one I’ve never told anyone before. I had a lover once when I was twenty-one. It was the most wonderful experience of my life. No woman should miss it.” She shook a crooked index finger under Agatha’s nose. “Now, you remember that if the chance comes up!”

Still chuckling tearfully, Agatha promised, “I will.”

“And tell them all hello from me and give that handsome Gandy a kiss on the cheek and tell him that’s from Violet, who wanted to do it every time he walked into the millinery shop. Now get on that train, girl. Hurry!”

And so parting was easy; Violet made it so with her unfailing spirit. It wasn’t until Agatha was half a mile down the track that her tears fell freely. But they were happy tears, somehow. And Violet had certainly given her something to think about!

She thought about it during her brief waking hours on the long trip south, wondering about Violet and who her lover had been and if he was someone Violet had been running into all through the years. And how long had the
affair lasted? And why hadn’t they married? And what was it that made it the most wonderful experience in her life?

Agatha had always thought only wicked women coupled with men outside of marriage. But Violet was far from wicked. Violet was a good Christian woman.

The thought roiled around and around in Agatha’s mind while the familiar transformation took place beyond the train window, while she gave up winter for spring, cool weather for warm, mud for blossoms. While the images of Scott and Willy danced before her eyes...

Then they became more than images. They were real, standing side by side on a red-cobbled depot yard, searching the windows that flashed past; Scott raising a finger and pointing—there she is!—and both of them waving, jubilant, smiling. Agatha’s heart swelled at the brief glimpse of her two loves, and though she’d never before been in Columbus, Mississippi, the sense of homecoming was strong and sharp and sweet. They were at the foot of the steps when she emerged, Willy perched on Scott’s arm.

“Gussie, Gussie!” he called, reaching.

He hugged her and knocked off the hat she’d worn only because she owned so many it was one less to carry in a bandbox. Scott caught it in his free hand while she and Willy hugged.

“Oh, Willy, I missed you.” She closed her eyes to seal in tears of happiness. They kissed and he tasted of sarsaparilla. She brushed back his hair and held his face and couldn’t get enough of looking at his beloved freckled cheeks and his precious brown eyes.

“Scotty says you’re stayin’ for good. Are you really, Gussie, are you?”

She smiled at Scott. “Well, I guess I am. I’ve packed up everything I own—even my sewing machine and Moose.”

“Moose! Really?”

“Really. He’s in a poultry crate in the baggage car and the porter has been feeding him.”

Willy peppered her face with noisy kisses that landed anywhere and everywhere. “Garsh!” he rejoiced. “Moose! Did you hear that, Scotty? She brung Moose!”

“Brought
Moose,” Scott corrected. When Agatha would have smiled at him, Willy held her cheeks between both his hands, demanding her undivided attention. “Wait’ll you see my horse. Her name is Cinnamon and she’s pregnant!”

“She is!”

“Scotty let me watch her get bred.”

“I see I’m just in time to get your education on the proper track for a boy of five.”

“Six. I had a birthday.”

“You did! I missed it?” She twisted her expression into one of exaggerated dismay.

“It’s all right. I’m gonna have another one next year. Let’s go get Moose. Zach is waitin’ at the wagons.”

Willy squiggled out of Scott’s arms to the cobblestones and scampered off, leaving Gandy and Agatha facing each other. With no barriers between them their eyes met and held. The sense of rush dissipated.

“Hello, again,” she said.

“Hello. How was the trip?”

“Fine. Rushed. Thank you for the fine accommodation. This time I actually slept.”

“This time?”

“Last time I was too excited to sleep. This time I was too exhausted not to.”

“No trouble gettin’ things settled in Kansas?”

“Everything went fine.” It was so hellishly tempting to touch him that she suddenly gave in to the urge. She went up on tiptoes, clipped an arm behind his neck, and kissed him on the cheek. “That’s from Violet. She said I should tell you she wanted to do it every time you walked into the millinery shop.” The hand holding her hat came around her back as he dropped his head obligingly.

When she would have backed away, his arm tightened. The dimples appeared in his cheeks, his voice softened. “That’s from Violet. What about from yourself?”

She had the presence of mind to smack him blithely on the other cheek and make no more of it than a joke. “There. That’s from me. Now give me my hat.”

He placed it on her head. “I thought you gave up hats.”

“That’s asking a lot of a woman who’s worn them all her life. I kept a few of my favorites, and this was the most convenient place to carry one of them.” She reached to adjust it but he did it instead, studying the results critically.

“Uh-uh. I don’t think so,” he decided and removed it. “You always did look better without one.”

“Hey, come on, you two,” Willy interrupted. “Zach’s waitin’.”

Scott reluctantly shifted his attention to the boy. “All right, all right. Go tell Zach t’ pull the wagon up t’ the baggage car at the other end and we’ll meet him there.”

Gandy took Agatha’s arm and they sauntered along the cobblestones toward the baggage car.

“You left the store in Violet’s hands?”

“Yes. She was ecstatic. Who is Zach?”

“The son of one of our old slaves. He’s very good with horses and is teachin’ Marcus how t’ be a farrier. So y’ brought the sewing machine.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to make a wedding dress without it. Did any of the others come to town with you?”

“No, but they’re all at home waitin’. Do y’ need anything from town before we head for Waverley? It’s an hour’s ride and we don’t make it every day.”

She needed nothing. She felt as though she had everything in the world she’d ever need or want as she watched the reunion between Willy and Moose—face to face, whiskers to freckles, the cat suspended as Willy held him beneath his front legs and kissed him, then squeezed him far too tightly, scrunched his eyes shut, and said, “Hey, Moose! Garsh, I missed you.”

Agatha was introduced to Zach, who pulled up in a weatherbeaten wooden wagon upon which was loaded the empty poultry crate and the sewing machine and all of Agatha’s gear, including the hat, which Gandy tossed through the air at the last minute.

Then she and Willy and Scott and Moose boarded a black well-sprung rig and headed for her new home. On the way Agatha saw her first redbud in bloom—clouds of rich heliotrope. And dogwood—clouds of cottony white. And wisteria—cascades of pure purple. In the ditches beside the
road wild jonquils bloomed in patches so large it looked as though pieces of sun had dropped to the earth and shattered upon the grass. Here, as in Florida, the scent of the South prevailed—rich, moist, fecund. Already Agatha loved it.

They passed Oakleigh and Willy told Agatha that was where A.J.’s grandma and mother had lived before the war. They passed a little white church in a copse of pines and he told her that was where Leatrice went on Sundays. They passed the cemetery and he told her that was where Justine was buried.

They turned into the lane and Gandy told her, “This... is where I was born.”

Waverley.

More grand, more majestic than Scott’s watercolor had been able to depict. Waverley, with its towering pillars and magnificent rotunda and its wrought-iron lacework. Waverley, with its massive magnolia out front and the boxwoods trimmed to match their names. She looked up and her heart hammered—she was really here at last. She looked down and saw the peacocks on the lawn!

“Oh!” she exclaimed breathlessly.

Scott smiled, watching her, filled with pride at the appearance of the place, decked out in its floral finery, lustrous as a pearl on its emerald lawns.

“You like it?”

Her reply was all he could have hoped for. She sat speechless, with a hand pressed to her thrumming heart.

Jack saw the carriage and came hurtling across the grounds from the tannery, bellowing at the top of his lungs, “They’re here, everybody! They’re here!” And before the carriage stopped, the front door flew open and voices were whooping and people were barreling toward the rig with arms uplifted.

Agatha was passed from Pearl to Ivory to Ruby, getting hugs from all. Then came Jack, puffing from his run across the yard, sweeping her in a circle and making her laugh. Then Jube, radiant even in a cleaning dress of washed cotton.

“Jubilee, congratulations!”

The two women backed off and smiled at each other. Then Jube captured Marcus’s arm to tug him forward. “Isn’t it wonderful? If he says anything different, don’t believe a word of it.”

Marcus, always the perfect gentleman, smiled at Agatha but held back. She gave him an impulsive hug.

“Congratulations, Marcus! I’m so happy for you.”

He made motions as if he were squirting oil and raised a questioning brow.

“Yes, it’s all oiled and ready to go. We’ll have her dress made in no time.”

There was one other person waiting on the front steps with hands crossed over her bulging stomach and a leather pouch suspended from a thong around her neck, a woman shaped like a water buffalo, who could only be the indubitable Leatrice.

Everyone except Leatrice talked at once. Everyone except Leatrice hugged Agatha or kissed her on the cheek. Everyone except Leatrice smiled and laughed. Leatrice waited like a queen on a dais for her subject to be announced.

When the initial hubbub had died down, Scott took Agatha’s elbow and escorted her up the marble steps.

“Leatrice,” he said, “I’d like you t’ meet Agatha Downin’. Agatha, this is Leatrice. She’s cantankerous and unreasonable and I don’t know why I keep her. But I’ve been farther underwater than she’s been away from Waverley, so I guess she’s here to stay.”

Leatrice spoke in a voice like an engine with gear trouble. “So you here at las’, d’ woman from Kansas. Maybe now we get sumpin’ ‘sides growlin’ outta dis one heah.” She curved a thumb toward Gandy. “Boy’s been one bodacious bear t’ live wid.”

Gandy grew red around the collar and studied his feet. Agatha politely refrained from looking at him. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Leatrice.”

“I jus’ bet ya have, an’ ain’t none of it good, izzat right?”

Agatha laughed. The woman did, indeed, stink like a polecat, which Gandy had warned she would. “Well, I’ve heard that you rule with an iron hand, but I have a feeling
there are times when
somebody
needs it.”